Hell for the Company
by NeverMineToHold
Summary: Ben Wade and Charlie Prince were in the habit of vanishing... Wade/Prince Slash


Title: "And Hell for the Company"

Status: OneShot

Fandom: 03:10 To Yuma

Characters/Pairing: Ben Wade/Charlie Prince, William Evans

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.

Rating: M

Genre: Alternative Universe – Canon Divergence, post-canon, slash, romance

Warnings: accidental voyeurism

Summary: Ben Wade and Charlie Prince were in the habit of vanishing...

And Hell for the Company

Ben Wade and Charlie Prince were in the habit of vanishing.

When the hired hands from Mexico had gone back to town, covered in sawdust and sweat after hours of hard work, and Alice was busy preparing supper, William lost track of them.

It left him uneasy.

They had an agreement with Butterfield and recent events in Contention had convinced him that Wade would honor it. But Prince was a docile shadow only for as long as he trailed after his boss, flat green eyes promising violence. There had been many hard and lingering stares between those two as of late, a rising tension William would have mistaken for infighting were it not for the fact that Wade seemed too damn amused by the whole thing.

"Will?" Mark asked, stretched out on their bed, a dime novel clutched in his hand. He twisted around to give him a puzzled look. "Where are you going?"

"Outside."

"Now? We'll eat soon."

The smell of steaks sizzling in the frying pan was wafting through the house, accompanied by the clatter of plates being set on the table. After weeks of living on the brink of poverty it would be a feast, complete with buttered carrots, thick gravy and mashed potatoes.

"I won't go far."

Mark nodded, eyes already back on his book, never noticing that his brother armed himself for his evening stroll. His naked feet pounded a staccato rhythm on the mattress that followed William out the door.

He hesitated on the front porch, squinting against the sun, a burned orange glow that threatened to drop below the horizon. The breeze ruffling his hair carried the first sting of a desert night.

William could see for miles, flat land and the dirt road that wound its way up the hill with its twisted cypress. Nothing moved except for the cows and horses in the paddock, and a scrawny coyote hunting down by the riverbed.

That left the half-finished barn.

Right now it was a wooden skeleton of nailed together boards and support beams, parts of it open to the sky, others already filled with tack, straw and feed. The stench of drying varnish was overwhelming.

With the work on it near done and the promised grand in the offing, they had a chance to start over and save their farm. But if Wade was planning to bow out of their deal or Prince killed him...

Determined to find out what was going on, and to put an end to it if need be, William moved closer to the broad side of the building, boots near silent on pebbles and dry grass. He searched for and found a knot-hole, using it to peer inside, which seemed more sensible than simply going in.

The first thing he spotted was the bone white of Charlie Prince's leather jacket. Instead of neat and tidy, worn with a queer sense of fashion and fastidious care, it was dirty now, rucked up and splayed open, exposing a heaving chest and flat stomach.

Straw rustled in the empty box, muffling obscene, wet noises as muscles strained and skin met. Prince moved up and down, hips guided by the firm grip of Wade's hands.

"Boss... boss..."

He babbled the word like a desperate mantra, voice rough and rising. Wade's only answer was a dark chuckle, but he must have taken pity on him: Prince threw his head back, Adam's apple bobbing in a silent scream.

William looked away, heart racing, one hand quickly covering mouth and nose to stifle any noise of shock he might have made. He felt his face burn, disgust and arousal two opposing forces, that made his stomach churn.

He stumbled back towards the house, thinking about the sacred union of husband and wife as the priests preached it, and what he had just witnessed, two men rutting together, an act that promised eternal damnation and hellfire. He tried to force the images from his mind, but found himself instead comparing how tender his own parents had once treated each other, and how a pale shadow of that had been present when Prince shook apart and Wade held him.

But most of all, William feared that he had retreated too late, that flat green eyes had met his - and prayed to be wrong.

XXX

"Seen anything interesting lately?"

William licked his lips and turned around slowly, meeting Wade's piercing gaze head on. "Nothing at all, sir."

"That's what I figured," Wade said mildly, acknowledging the lie with a nod. "Always knew you're a smart boy."

The End

[_Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company._ ~ Mark Twain]


End file.
